The 24 hours of bande dessinée is taken very seriously in France. Each year, right before the Angoulême International Comics Festival, cartoonists are given a constraint at 3pm on the dot and then have 24 hours to complete a 24 page comic based on that constraint. This year, the constraint was fairly easy. Three phrases were chosen from a hat. The first one had to be included in the first third of the comic, the second in the second third, and so on. They were as follows:

1) Suddenly emerging

2) And finally

3) she interrupted herself.

I chose to make a comic out of something that happened while I was travelling with the Common Language Project in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2010. I ended up totally failing the entire challenge. Not only did I not finish in 24 hours, but the comic is not 24 pages long, and phrase #1 ended up in the second third of the comic. But 24hBD is meant to be an exercise, and it was a great experience to even attempt to complete a project in such a short period of time, so I don’t care that I lost the game.

Please note that the bulk of this was done under extreme stress during the actual 24hBD so excuse any sloppiness in writing or drawing. Also please note that although this is based on a true story, it should not be considered journalism. The last scene has been fiddled with in order to fit the constraints of the 24 hour comics theme and the dialogue has been reconstructed/invented.